Works Cited
Salehyan, Idean, and Kristian S. Gleditsch. "Refugees and the Spread of Civil War." Cambridge Journals 60 (2006): 335-66.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Effect of Refugee Camps of their host country
When a refugee camp is created in a host country it has many effects of said country. For example, the economy of the host country must be strong enough to support an influx of people that they will be housing for an undermined amount of time. Most refugee camps are created as short term destinations, but many end up being there for much, much longer. The country must be able to maintain a strong economy, supply the needed supplies to the camps, although many countries receive outside aid from organizations. Yet more important than this is the fact that must be political and socially stable enough to maintain an influx of people who maintain a different set of cultural beliefs and values. As these people are likely to have an impact on the current population of locals living nearby. Anything from religious beliefs to cultural practices may be influenced by the arrival of a large number of refugees. This is especially true when the camp does not include fences in their security measures as it allows refugees to mix with locals and vice versa. Imagine if your neighborhood was suddenly used a refugee location for thirty refugees. After mixing for even a week, do you think that some of your viewpoints might be altered? You would be speaking with people who not only have a different set of beliefs and values but also whose personal life experiences are completely different form your own. While the effect that refugees have on the country may be great, the effect that they have on the culture of their surrounding areas is even stronger and will likely influence the culture of those areas for a long time to come.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The subject of refugee is a very interesting topic for a cross-cultural encounter, because cross-cultural encounters are every day realities for refugees. Coming from and/or identifying with one culture, language, and set of traditions, and being not only exposed to, but thrown into a different culture and space, it is very interesting to see what this situation can do to change a person’s personal identity, how they are seen by others, and how their forced plight changes their perception of culture and space. These views and experiences seem to be most often shaped by fear and insecurity about past, present, and future. This blog has done an excellent job in incorporating these themes from our Anthropology lectures and readings. Refugees experience culture clashes on many levels when they are residing in a new country, whether it be in a camp our within the society of the host country. The host residents and government may be very accommodating or very hostile. Refugees may be either in better or worse situations than they had been in previously. In refugee camps or in their new society, they may have better access to education, resources, and jobs, or it can be the exact opposite situation, because living in very over-crowded situations often means quick and rampant spread of diseases, lack of food and resources, as well as security either within a refugee camp or from outside attack, which is what has been happening in Darfur, Sudan.
ReplyDeleteI can’t even imagine what the life of a refugee is like. I can never really know unless I am forced to give up my everyday comforts and luxurious familiarities. Such an experience would not only change my life, but the way in which I view the world, and the way the world would see me. Going off of the article, Why Katrina’s Victims Aren’t Refugees: Musings on a ‘Dirty’ Word, people very often generalize and stigmatize people who have been forcefully uprooted from their homes, because they are seen as completely helpless people worlds away from our own in an ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ viewpoint. This not only shapes the mindsets of people in the first world, who are very far removed from such terrible situations, but also shapes the sense of self of these refugees and displaced peoples, causing them to feel even more helpless.
I wrote a term paper last semester on the experience of refugees, as well as the citizenship and relocation system in Egypt for my Politics of the Middle East class. Egypt is a very popular destination for refugees in Northern Africa, as it is one of the most stable countries in the area. People come from Sudan, Libya, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. What I found was that many of the problems faced by refugees residing in a foreign country include missing separated family members, racism, intense job competition from locals and other refugees, and discrimination from employers or potential employers. Refugees also experience intense overcrowding in camps and cities, not to mention language, cultural, and religious barriers. Some host countries are almost completely unable to support refugees, and so they aren’t allowed to leave their allotted camps.
Refugees affect the existing culture of their host countries in terms of adding to its diversity by adding their own views, traditions, and languages. Refugees most often take the most undesirable jobs in a society, and are resented for the threat they pose in the competition for jobs and resources. Some countries will come up with new policies and programs to deal with this new population. Some of these often include new housing projects or relocation programs, or they may work in ways to get rid of them.